Animation Shows Precisely How a Winchester Model 1873 Works

Here’s a cutaway animation from multiple angles that shows just how a Winchester model 1873 works. You could build a gun based on this video.

This video is a treat for any fans of lever action rifles. This animation shows, in detail and from several angles, exactly how a Winchester Model 1873 operates as it fires.

The video shows a complete loading, firing and reloading sequence more than once and offers both a wide view and a close-up cutaway view of the internal workings – the guts, so to speak – of the various components of the rifle as it goes through the firing process.

Certain components are colored, and the format changes to highlight different operations as the gun fires, making this video a real educational tool for amateur gunsmiths or just for gun nuts.

The Winchester 1873 was marketed as “The Gun that Won the West” and is still an iconic rifle today. Manufactured between 1873 and 1923 there are many of these guns that are prized possessions in modern gun owners’ collections.

Originally chambered for the .44-40 cartridge, the 1873 was later manufactured in .38-40 and .32-20, and was mass produced in four variations, although Winchester would build the rifles in almost any configuration desired by its customers.

Winchester again manufactured the model 1873 in 2013. The “new” model 1873 is chambered in .357 Magnum/.38 Special, and other than the addition of a new firing pin block safety mechanism and a cartridge ejection carrier that throws the shell casings away from the shooter, the rifle is the same as the original.

This is one of those videos that you could watch on a loop, over and over again. It’s practically hypnotic.

Like what you see here? You can read more great articles by David Smith at his facebook page, Stumpjack Outdoors.